


There's Nothing In My System (So I'm Feeling What I Feel for You)

by Meova



Category: Waterparks (Band)
Genre: Hanahaki Disease, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-28
Updated: 2018-10-28
Packaged: 2019-08-09 02:33:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,911
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16441355
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Meova/pseuds/Meova
Summary: Awsten's only just gotten back together with Ciara when he starts coughing up flowers and realizes he made a mistake. He'd rather risk his life than throw away everything he's worked for, but he never really had a choice.





	There's Nothing In My System (So I'm Feeling What I Feel for You)

**Author's Note:**

> So I had this typed up forever, but wanted to make it a better portrayal of hanahaki before I posted it. That never happened, so before I forget all about it, here it is. Google hanahaki if you want to know more about it, it's fascinating!  
> Awsten and Travis, if you're crawling through AO3 for your podcast or for fun, please press ALT-F4 to get a special surprise. <3  
> Anyway there's no triggers or anything, just a healthy dose of angst. Hope you like it!

He coughed up the first flowers just after he and Ciara had gotten back together.

He’d felt the petals travel through his airway, his throat (and what a strange feeling it was, velvety smoothness slowly making its way up) and finally out of his mouth. If he took a deep enough breath he could feel the first inkling of the roots, finding their way into his lungs. He tried to hide the flowers, close his fists and stuff them in his pocket before she saw, but he was too late.

‘Is that a flower?’ she asked. ‘Where did you get that?’

He opened his fingers. It was blue. He didn’t know what else he’d expected.

‘I coughed it up.’

They looked at each other for a long minute, both knowing what this meant.

‘You could have at least told me not to bother the second time,’ Ciara spat at him.

‘Maybe you shouldn’t have bothered at all.’

‘You begged me to come back!’

‘Just leave, Ciara.’

He wasn’t going to waste the little time he had left on her.

 

He should probably tell his bandmates what was going on, but it was surprisingly easy to brush it off as an aesthetic choice. He wasn’t suffering from it, he was just choosing to cough up flowers every once in a while.

Otto looked at him, unconvinced. Geoff pulled him aside after a particularly violent coughing fit (two types of flowers now, blue and yellow) and told him to get it checked out.

‘Even if you’re swallowing them yourself,’ another side eye, Awsten knew he wasn’t really fooling anyone, ‘you don’t know if you can give yourself the disease, and you just broke up with Ciara again, you’ll probably die if it happens so please. We worry.’

He smiled and nodded, thanked Geoff for his worry, let him make an appointment and resolved to not actually go. There was nothing to fix.

At least the yellow flowers masked the blue and what they really meant.

 

At some point, his mom was bound to notice. He could pull the wool over his friends’ eyes, but he actually lived with his mom. She noticed when the flowers wouldn’t disappear. She noticed the coughing fits becoming worse.

‘Aws, baby...’ she started, after Awsten had brushed the latest bout of petals from his lap and lips. ‘You need to get this checked out. You never know how quickly this progresses and you need to know your options.’

‘Fine,’ Awsten grunted, not quite having his voice back yet. This disease was fucking with everything he loved.

‘I know it’s hard, but please promise me you’ll do the surgery before even considering going back to her. If she loved you, you would not be in this position.’

‘Mom… It’s not Ciara.’

He hadn’t wanted to tell her that.

She reached over and hugged him.

‘Oh. Oh honey. It’s okay.’

He felt the familiar burn behind his eyes, but the tears wouldn’t come.

 

They might have to postpone the coming tour. It was getting harder to get through rehearsals, the flowers choking him, coming out in between lyrics, yellow during songs about her, blue during songs about…

Look, not thinking about it wasn’t going to get him anywhere, he might as well just call it by name.

At that moment, Geoff started his verse of Crave and Awsten felt the flowers move up again.

His throat was raw, his heart hurt and his lungs were slowly drowning in flowers.

He couldn’t breathe.

He went down, Geoff leaning over him the last thing he saw before his vision went black.

 

He might have a problem and the hanahaki wasn’t the worst of it.

So he was in love with Geoff. It happened, okay. He didn’t understand why there weren’t more people in love with him.

If he was around Geoff, the hanahaki got worse. He coughed more, the flowers seemed to multiply quicker and he couldn’t breathe like he should be able to. Although that last part might just be connected to Geoff in general. The guy took his breath away, from the first time he’d seen him, all those years ago.

In hindsight, he wondered why it took so long for this disease to develop.

He had two choices. He could suffer through it and still be in Waterparks, still do the shows, still be around Geoff, or he could quit now and hopefully buy himself some more time.

He’d have to sell his soul to buy more time. He’d never really had a choice.

 

When he woke up again, he was in the hospital. Flower petals were scattered around his pillow and between the now-familiar blue and yellow, he spotted some pink. Great. Of course the colours had to keep taunting him. He couldn’t wait for this torture to be over.

He wallowed in self-pity for a while, not even bothering to wipe the flowers away, until a nurse came in.

‘Oh, you’re awake. Good. Did you want an update on your condition now, Mr. Knight?’

‘Sure, why not.’ It’s not like he was planning to listen, but he might as well get this over with.

‘So we found three types of flowers in your respiratory system, which I’m sure you’re well aware of already. We don’t know yet when this started, we needed your input for that, but since we saw the third type form while you were here, we are fairly sure that this is one of the faster types of hanahaki out there. You have to decide quickly whether you want the surgery, we will make sure there’s space to accommodate you in case you decide to go through with it.’

‘How long would I have without the surgery?’ Awsten whispered.

‘About a month, give or take a week or so. It depends on when this started,’

He had to swallow back shocked tears at that. Except he couldn’t swallow, his throat was full again, so they spilled out of his eyes, blurring his vision.

‘I understand this comes as a shock, Mr. Knight. I’ll leave you alone for now.’

He nodded at the nurse, heard the door close and buried his face in the blanket.

Another coughing fit left him with flowers in his hand and he wanted them out, wanted to stop feeling this way, he thrust his fingers into his throat and retched until he was throwing up bile, stinging his throat, ripping it apart, he could taste blood and earth and salt and goddammit he hated this

 

He must’ve fallen asleep. When he opened his eyes again, Geoff was next to his bed.

Actually, he was leaning over it, brushing something away from his pillow. Awsten didn’t want to think about what it might be.

‘How are you feeling?’ Geoff asked.

‘Like a walking love song,’ Awsten replied. ‘I’m so in love I can’t stop puking rainbows.’

‘Blue and yellow doesn’t mean it’s a rainbow.’

‘There’s pink too, now.’

‘Oh, fuck.’

‘Yeah.’

He could almost believe Geoff loved him back in those few moments of silence.

‘I don’t want you to get that surgery,’ Geoff suddenly stammered out. ‘I wish I could help you. I wish I could make her love you back. I just… fuck. Fuck. Sorry. I’ll go now.’

He was gone before Awsten could reply.

 

The more he thought about that conversation, the more confused he became.

Geoff couldn’t… No, that was impossible.

He was seriously starting to hate making people think he got this way because of _her_ , though. It had seemed easier at first (and ironic, too, hanahaki, hannahaki, get it, harhar, his sense of humor had disappeared along with his breath) but what if Geoff really tried to get her back for him, what if…

Too many what if’s. He couldn’t think about those.

He needed to get the surgery to keep Waterparks going.

He couldn’t get the surgery if he wanted to keep feeling, so he could write songs to perform with Waterparks.

He was fucked either way.

 

He scheduled the surgery.

He wanted to go out on his own terms. Not because of some stupid disease.

He just didn’t want to feel anymore. It hadn’t gotten him anywhere.

 

They refused to let him check himself out of the hospital. The disease was progressing too quickly, they said, he needed to be in reach of oxygen all the time.

His complaining did fuck-all. Even his mom was siding with the doctors and nurses.

The only upside was that Geoff visited him every day. Otto, Jawn and Travis came too, but Geoff tended to come by himself.

They talked about nothing in particular, Awsten carefully keeping himself back from forging too deep of a connection. They’d always been friends, sure, but he didn’t want to deepen the friendship only to end up losing everything. He knew he’d be able to keep friends. He also knew that was the most he would ever be able to have after the surgery.

Another day, another new colour. This time it’s green. The doctors decided they couldn’t wait any longer.

Surgery was tomorrow.

His tears soaked the blanket. He pretended he was only choking because of the flowers.

 

He opened his eyes to Geoff sitting next to him, leg twitching, fingers twisting together, hair so mussed that he must have been pulling it moments before.

Geoff looked at him, eyes shiny.

‘I know you need the surgery. I just have a couple of things to say real quick before that.’

Awsten waited, tried to memorize how Geoff looked through the lens of his feelings. Even now, now that Geoff was obviously distressed, he was beautiful.

Would he still be beautiful after the surgery?

Geoff struggled to find the words, biting his lip, one hand back in his hair.

‘I know… Goddammit. Why did it have to be...’

He watched Geoff choke on words the way he choked on petals and his heart bled. He didn’t have to cough to know that a fifth colour had appeared.

He was trying to imagine what colour it would be this time when Geoff got up, wound a hand in Awsten’s hair and pulled him in for a kiss.

‘I wish I was her,’ Geoff whispered after pulling back. ‘I love you, Awsten, and it kills me that I will never have a chance again.’

‘You idiot,’ Awsten murmured, interrupted by another coughing fit. Geoff’s face fell and his eyes dropped, hand letting go of Awsten’s hair. Awsten covered his mouth, coughed until he’d gotten this (final, hopefully) bunch of flowers out, opened his hand to check if he could see the last colour.

He couldn’t. The petals were wilting.

‘Geoff.’

‘You don’t have to tell me,’ Geoff said, getting up. ‘Let’s just pretend this never happened.’

‘You moron, turn the fuck around. It wasn’t her. It was never her.’

‘What?’ Geoff still wasn’t turning around. Maybe he’d overestimated his intelligence. He threw the flowers at Geoff’s back.

Finally, he did turn around.

‘Are those...’

‘They’re dying.’

‘It’s not her?’

‘Geoff, stop being stupid and come here.’

Finally, he got the hint and sat back down on the bed. Awsten pulled him in, giving him plenty of time to pull away in case this was just a delirious dream from lack of oxygen, but nothing of the sort happened.

As he pressed his lips to Geoff’s, he felt his lungs take in more air than he’d been able to for the last two years.


End file.
